Fleetwood Mac Rumours reissue

I was really excited about the reissue when I found out about it so I bought it. I was blown away how bad it sounded to me. Yes the hiss/noise floor was quieter, but there was a major loss of dynamics and vocals seemed striped of life. The overall sound was drab and uninvolving. Once I put the old version in vocals were sweet, natural and real again. The soundstage opened back up and the loss of dynamics were gone. Hiss was back, but for me I did not mind. I still can't believe this and it makes me wonder how the new reissues that are out sound in comparison to the older versions.

Disco,

Your description would have been my guess. I have not heard it but generally new remasters are additionally compressed to give the "hot" sound that is common today.

At low levels this will give the brief impression of more "edge, attack and detail"....but when you turn it up to normal listening levels you discover it is just "squashed" music with excessive amounts of distortion.

Since this has been my experience recently with other remasters and it sounds like you have identified this on this new remaster ....I'll stay away.

Thanks for the tip!

Shadorne, and anyone else for that fact, please let us know if you have compared a reissue/remaster to the old verision and what you thought. I was ready to load up on the reissues/remasters until I tried Rumours.

I have TOTO Essentials CD and it is mildly overcompressed - it still sounds ok but the 80's Grammy winning sound ain't quite there after Joseph M. Palmaccio squashed it.

Doug Sax did a good job on Aerosmith's box CD set of their first three ( this was initially released on SACD ) and the CD sounds the same quality.

Another good remaster is Bob Ludwig's work on the Stones....still lots of distortion (or it would not be Stones) but an imporovement, IMHO.

I agree with the starter of this thread. The remaster is better than the original redbook by a long shot. And yes, it is out on vinyl but I have not heard it yet. Remasters are a hit and miss game. Not all good and not all bad. I would say its about 80% that the remaster will improve greatly over 1980's redbook CDs.